Start with a white piece of vellum. Cut out feathers either by hand or by using a die. I used the fabulous Feathers die from Lifestyle Crafts/We R Memory Keepers. I like this die in particular because it has several different-sized feathers on one single die.
Once you've cut out your feathers, use a scoring board to give the feathers a center crease:
The next step is to emboss the edges. You could use any shade of embossing powder, though I went with silver. Start by dabbing some embossing ink (I don't think you can beat Tim Holtz Embossing Ink) along the edge and center of your feather, then sprinkle embossing powder over your feather:
Important note! Vellum is lightweight, so before shooting your feather with a heat gun, grab a heat-resistant tool to hold your feather in place (fingers are not heat-resistant)! I used a bamboo skewer to hold down the feather while I hit it with the heat gun.
This is where the magic happens! I love how you can see the embossing powder totally change to a beautiful liquid sheen when heat is applied:
The last step is to color your feather. I like to use wedge-shaped make-up sponges to dab ink onto surfaces like this. I used Tim Holtz Distress inks and Colorbox inks and blended a couple of different colors onto each feather.
And that's it! I folded the feathers just slightly along the middle crease to make them more dimensional, then I added them to my card and wah-lah! You have some lovely feathers that will serve as the perfect embellishment for any craft.
Other supplies I used for my card include stamps from Lost Coast Designs (bird), Paperbag Studios (newsprint house) and EK Success (alphabet letters). The paper is from The Paper Studio, My Mind's Eye and Kaiser. I also used Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink and Recollections Metallic Silver embossing powder.